Josh Reynolds: Master of Death

‘Me,’ the Lahmian said, ‘I warned you, old beast. And now, you are done.’

With that, the Lahmian danced forward, impossibly quick, her Cathayan blade moving like quicksilver as it cut ribbons from his unprotected hide. He screamed and reeled as stinking smoke rose from the wounds. The blade was edged with silver and every cut was agony. Clutching his wounded wrist to his chest, he tried to fend her off, spitting cursed syllables with desperate rapidity, his mind racing as he unleashed spell after spell. She avoided every one, her sinuous shape curling and sliding through the air like a leaf or a plume of smoke, drawing ever closer to him, until at last her blade bit deep into his belly. ‘Die,’ she purred into his ear as she forced the blade into him. ‘Die, in the name of my sisters, W’soran. Die, in the name of the Queen of Mysteries.’

‘I’ve already done that once, witch,’ W’soran rasped, black blood filling his mouth. ‘I’ll not do it again!’ His good hand shot forward and spidery talons wrapped themselves around the Lahmian’s neck. Her eyes widened as his claws tightened. He would pop her head from her neck.

But before he could do so, saw-edged fangs sank into the side of his throat, and claws into his scalp. He released the Lahmian and clawed wildly at Melkhior, who savaged his throat unheeding. Remora-like, his former apprentice dug his bestial snout into the wound his teeth had made and gulped the ancient blood that spurted forth. W’soran stumbled and sank to his knees. Melkhior hunched over him, ripping and tearing with a terrible fury.

W’soran fell forward, and Melkhior staggered back, covered in black blood, his eyes wide with madness. W’soran tried to push himself up, but he was too weak. ‘No,’ he gurgled, clawing at the stone floor. Through a red haze, he saw Melkhior pad forward, deadly intent writ in his movement. There was a hunger in his former apprentice’s eyes that chilled him, a terrible monstrous hunger that he recognised, and feared. ‘Not like this,’ he croaked.

Melkhior crouched over him and his animal features were alight with hideous joy. ‘I have waited centuries for this, old monster,’ he whispered. W’soran’s fading vision was filled by that ravenous maw dipping towards him, his blood still wet upon the serrated fangs that lined it.

Then, he saw nothing but darkness.

Lahmia, the City of the Dawn

(Year -1200 Imperial Calendar)

The first thing he saw upon awakening was Ushoran. Given that the last thing he’d seen had been Neferata, her beauteous features contorted in an animal snarl as she thrust a jagged chunk of wood into his heart, it was an improvement, though not by much.

The Lord of Masks drew back, the damnable splinter of wood in his grip. He was as W’soran remembered him, the dull glamour masking the bestial shape within, a mask within a mask. Which was the true Ushoran? W’soran knew that he could find out easily enough, but he didn’t particularly care. He never had, in truth. Let Ushoran play his silly games, and hide his crimes in double-talk and feigned innocence. W’soran had never feared consequence or result, for opportunity was born in both.

‘W’soran,’ Ushoran said, softly, as if he were afraid to awaken the other vampire.

‘Ushoran,’ W’soran replied. He was lying on the floor of the temple cellar. She hadn’t bothered to move him very far. He felt a glimmer of insult — had she even considered that someone might attempt to find him? Then again, no one had. Maybe she was smarter than he’d given her credit for. Or perhaps she was simply more paranoid. He thought he knew which was more likely.

‘It’s been-’ Ushoran began hesitantly.

‘Twenty-two years,’ W’soran cut him off. ‘Twenty-two years folded up and crammed into a jar,’ he said, letting only a hint of the bitterness he felt seep into his words. It gnawed at his guts, to have been so close, only to be ripped away at the moment of enlightenment. He raised his arm and felt for the already healing place where Neferata had rammed the stake that had pierced his heart. And for what — spite? Or perhaps jealousy; she had never been one to share power. It all came down to power in the end. And hers was as nothing compared to that which he had touched in those brief, beautiful black moments before she had consigned him to spiteful oblivion.

Nonetheless, he could still feel it, echoing in his bones. The ritual had been a success, more so than he had dared to even hope. He had cracked the bones of the world and touched divinity itself. Not one of the old, weak gods of the Great Land, but a vibrant god, a new god. The Undying King himself, his eyes blazing like baleful suns, had graced W’soran with a moment of his attentions. The Great Necromancer had answered his call, and in that moment, Nagash, the Master of Death, had claimed a new servant in W’soran of Mahrak.

He could feel the pressure now, in his head. He had always felt it, since Neferata had given him the blood-kiss, but only now did he recognise it for what it was. The others did not see it. They would never see it. Nobility were blind to any powers that were not their own, but W’soran, who had always served, recognised the hand of a master easily enough. Nagash’s hand was at their throats and his blood was in their veins. And soon enough, he would join his true master.

But first…‘I take it I’m forgiven. No, don’t bother. Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?’

‘I see two decades of pickling has only sharpened your tongue,’ another voice intruded.

W’soran didn’t bother to look. He recognised the voice easily enough. No one else sounded that petulant. ‘Hello, Ankhat,’ he said, slowly sitting up. ‘Still clinging to Neferata’s hem?’

‘Put the stake back in him,’ Ankhat snarled. ‘Put him back where we found him. Lahmia will survive without him.’ The nobleman had never liked him, W’soran recalled. Indeed, he had even helped Neferata disrupt W’soran’s ceremony. He had tattled like a child hoping for a reward. More jealousy, more narrow-minded spite, and as with Ushoran, perhaps a touch of fear; only a few among the Lahmian Court did not fear W’soran in some small way, though it was a fear born of shallow assumption rather than true understanding, and for that he hated them. For all that he despised her of, W’soran knew that Neferata feared nothing. She could not conceive of defeat, or of submission to another.

Perhaps he would bring Nagash her head, as a gift.

‘Neferata has commanded that we free him,’ Ushoran said smoothly, not taking his eyes from W’soran, as if he’d heard the other vampire’s thoughts. Maybe he had. Neferata’s blood had awakened strange talents in each of them. W’soran idly wondered if such abilities were transferable between vampires. What part of Ushoran’s brain would he have to excise in order to do so?

Ushoran continued, ‘And so we have. Let the consequences be on her head.’

‘Why?’ W’soran asked. ‘Why would she do such a thing?’ But he already knew. He had foreseen it the moment he had learned that the petulant prince of Rasetra had escaped.

‘Alcadizzar,’ Ushoran said.

The Dark Lands

(Year -326 Imperial Calendar)

The cavern was immense. Its inhabitants had worn the stones of the floor smooth, generation by generation, and the walls had been bolstered by supports crafted haphazardly from both stone and wood even as it had grown, its circumference increasing with the population of the mountain. Great, crude chimneys were driven into the curve of the roof, carrying out smoke and bringing in fresh air, as well as allowing for the ingress and egress of the more agile inhabitants. Irrigation canals had been carved into the rock walls and slithered across the floor, creating a weird pattern of filthy, sluggish water that seemed to be going nowhere in particular. Vast, primitive portcullises crafted from badly forged metal were embedded in the walls at irregular intervals, marking hundreds of exits and entrances, leading up into the heights and down into the depths.